The Appian Way 1 from Porta Capena to the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella
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The Appian Way 1 from Porta Capena to the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella (Miles I-III) - Inside the Walls By bike On foot This section of the Appian Way, called “the urban section” because it was part of the city in antiquity, starts from the central archaeological area, in front of the Circus Maximus and near the Baths of Caracalla. This is where the ancient Porta Capena (Capua Gate), the original departure point of the Appian Way and the Latin Way dating back to the Republican period, was located. The urban section ends at the Porta S. Sebastiano (St. Sebastian Gate), part of the walls built in the reign of the emperor Aurelian in the 3rd century AD. The monuments described along this section are currently not included in the Appia Antica Regional Park, which begins at Porta S. Sebastiano. Nevertheless, the monumental complex of the Appian Way represents a coherent context which must be described holistically beginning in the monumental center of Rome. 1) Porta Capena The Capua Gate was part of the earliest wall of Rome, called the “Servian Wall” because its construction was traditionally attributed to the sixth king of Rome, Servius Tullius, in the middle of the 6th century BC. The most recent studies confirm the existence of a wall circuit in cappellaccio tuff that can be associated chronologically with Servius Tullius, which was later restored and enlarged in the first half of the 4th century BC. The Appian and Latin Ways both started from this gate, which was located in front of the curved end of the Circus Maximus, and then separated in the area of the large square currently dedicated to Numa Pompilius. When the emperor Aurelian built the new city wall, the section of the Appian Way between Porta Capena and Porta S. Sebastiano became the urban section of the road. 2) Church of St. Mary in Tempulo This deconsecrated church is located on the left side of the Archaeological Walk along today’s Via Valle delle Camene. It preserves the remains of an interesting Romanesque bell tower datable to the 12th century. The church was subsequently incorporated into a farmhouse called “Vignola Mattei” which was recently restored by the City of Rome and is used for the celebration of civil marriages. Authority: City of Rome 3) Baths of Caracalla The Baths of Caracalla, one of the largest and best-preserved bathing complexes of antiquity, were probably planned under the emperor Septimius Severus (r. AD 193-211) but were inaugurated in AD 216 in the reign of his son Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Bassianus, called “Caracalla.” Even in ancient times the complex was famous as one of the seven wonders of Rome for the richness of its decorations and the works of art that adorned it. In some places the walls are still preserved to a height of more than 30 m. The grandiose building consisted of two symmetrical wings linked by a circular central body. The bathing facilities were accompanied by vast exercise courts, a basilica for meetings and walks, and a large open-air pool. The extensive network of underground tunnels contained the service structures, the plumbing, and the furnaces forming the heating system. Of particular interest is a mithraeum (shrine for the worship of Mithras) discovered at the beginning of the 20th century in the northwestern sector of the underground level, the largest one found in Rome to date. Authority: Archaeological Superintendency of Rome Reference web site: http://archeoroma.beniculturali.it/en/archaeological-site/baths-caracalla 4) Church of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus This church, situated on the right side of the Archaeological Walk, in front of the Baths of Caracalla, was founded at the end of the 6th century. Partial reconstructions and restorations were carried out in the 9th century, and again in the 15th century; its current appearance derives from interventions executed in the 17th century under Cardinal Cesare Baronio. 5) Church of San Sisto Vecchio (Domenico and Sisto) This church stands on the left side of the Archaeological Walk, at the corner with Via Druso. The 18th-century façade conceals the original 5th-century core, which has a nave and two side aisles preceded by a four-sided portico; the small bell tower dates to the 13th century. 6) Shrine in Piazzale Numa Pompilio At the point where the Latin Way branched off of the Appian Way, in today’s Piazzale Numa Pompilio, there is a Medieval shrine in the form of a small circular tower dating to the 11th or 12th century. It stands on the site of a much earlier compitum, which was a shrine dedicated to divinities protecting places and travelers who were known as the Lares compitales. 7) Pallavicini House and Oratory of the Seven Sleepers After Piazzale Numa Pompilio, on the left side of Via di Porta S. Sebastiano (No. 7), lies the Pallavicini House, which incorporates the remains of a two-story Roman house from the second half of the 2nd century AD. Between the 11th and the 12th centuries the first floor of the Roman structure was converted into the building known as the “Oratory of the Seven Sleepers”; its paintings illustrate the legend of seven boys from Ephesus who were walled inside a cave during the persecution of Decius (249-251) and then, two centuries later, miraculously found still alive. Authority: private property 8) Church of St. Caesarius On the right side of Via di Porta S. Sebastiano there is the 12th-century Church of S. Cesareo de Appia. Several black-and-white mosaics depicting marine scenes found under the floor belonged to a 2nd-century AD bath building, perhaps the Baths of Commodus. The church, renovated on several occasions, was restored at the beginning of the 17th century by Cardinal Cesare Baronio. 9) House of Cardinal Bessarione At the fork of the Appian and Latin Ways, at Via di Porta S. Sebastiano No. 9, there is a Renaissance-era suburban villa attributed to Cardinal Bessarione, the bishop of Tuscolo between 1449 and 1468. Two tombs of the late Republican period made of tuff masonry were recently discovered in the foundations of the building; a later house was built against them. This house was used as a small hospital at the beginning of the 14th century; afterwards it became a monastery, and in the middle of the 19th century it housed a country inn. Authority: City of Rome Reference web site: http://www.sovraintendenzaroma.it/i_luoghi/roma_medioevale_e- Moderna/beni_architettonici/la_casina_del_cardinal_bessarione 10) Tomb of the Scipios On the left side of the Via di Porta S. Sebastiano, at No. 9, is the Tomb of the Cornelii Scipiones, one of the most renowned patrician families of Republican Rome. The tomb, carved out of a natural outcropping of cappellaccio tuff, was built in the first decades of the 3rd century BC by the founder of the family, Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, consul in 298 BC, whose sarcophagus in peperino tuff (a copy, since the original is preserved in the Vatican Museums) enjoys a dominant position facing the entrance. The tomb is square in plan, with a corridor along each of the four sides and two perpendicular corridors in the middle; there was space for 32 sarcophagi along the interior walls. The monumental façade, arranged by Scipio Aemilianus in the 2nd century BC, consisted of a high podium with three symmetrical entrances and three niches which housed statues representing the poet Ennius, Scipio Africanus, and Scipio Asiaticus. Another room was added on the right side of the tomb in the 1st century AD by the Cornelii Lentuli, a secondary branch of the family, which used the tomb for cremation burials. The archaeological area also contains an Imperial-era structure, a catacomb, and a 1st-century BC columbarium (structure housing multiple cremation burials and resembling a dovecote). Authority: City of Rome Reference web site: http://www.sovraintendenzaroma.it/i_luoghi/roma_antica/monu- menti/sepolcro_degli_scipioni 11) Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas This brickwork columbarium, discovered in 1831 by Pietro Campana, a learned antiquarian and collector, is located in the public garden behind the Tomb of the Scipios, not far from the Aurelianic Walls and along the route of a secondary road (diverticulum) that linked the Appian and Latin Ways. The entrance is at Via Latina No. 10. It originally belonged to Pomponius Hylas and his wife Pomponia Vitalis, with its construction dating to the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius (AD 14-54). 12) Columbaria in Vigna Codini In a former vineyard of the Codini family, just behind the Aurelianic Walls between the Appian and Latin Ways, three columbaria were found between 1840 and 1852 (Via di Porta S. Sebastiano No. 13; current entrance Via di Porta Latina No. 14). They were built between the Augustan and the Tiberian periods (31 BC–AD 37) and used until the 2nd cen- tury AD. The first columbarium consists of a brick-faced rectangular underground hall, with a podium faced in the reticulate technique (small tuff nodules set in a net pattern) and a central pillar supporting the ceiling. All of the walls, the central pillar, and a brick stairway running along the walls are entirely covered with semicircular niches which contained the cinerary urns, for a total of about 500 burial cells; the name of the owner was inscribed or scratched on a panel located at the foot of the niche. The second columbarium consists of a square room with reticulate facing containing 300 arched burial cells, each containing two cinerary urns. The walls preserve conspicuous remains of ornamental paintings and colored stucco work, while the floor, made of cocciopesto (crushed ceramic set into mortar) with marble inserts, sports a mosaic inscription recording a dedication by two members of the funerary society who oversaw the structure’s restoration.